Pizy

Nah, I think we're all expecting them to reject it. Only way I'd have a meltdown is if a small time club like fucking Everton sign him ahead of us.

Get ready for another De Laurentiis gem later today. "Koulibaly is worth £70m. He won't be sold."

Hopefully that's not our final offer because I have the distinct feeling their owner will refuse it.

Get her done, Chels!

If we're playing with 2 strikers we'd be giving up numbers in midfield against many teams from the get go. When out of possision we'd be at a significant disadvantage defensively with Cesc in the middle of the pitch. Asking Kante to run himself into the ground trying to cover his area plus pick up the slack for Cesc is risky. Such a selection headache! Conte has talked up Matic so much that I kind of feel he's nailed on to start and obviously Kante will. At the same time it also seems clear that we'll play with 2 up top. If that's the case I can't see any place in the starting XI for Cesc.

Bullshit! We already have 2 pure DM's in Matic and Mikel who have limited skill sets. Last thing we need is another one of those. Maybe if we sold Mikel, but God knows that ain't happening. Even then we wouldn't really need him.

Matic & Kante should be our starting midfield pairing for the big games against the top teams. Conte and a couple of our players have confirmed that we'll be playing with 2 in the middle (which I'm not a fan of, personally) and you simply cannot play Cesc in a 2 man midfield anymore. It would be like an anchor around Kante's neck doing the work of 2 players. 4-2-4 with Kante and Matic primarily. Maybe bring Cesc in and sacrifice the second striker against parked buses and against weaker opposition.

Looks like confirmation as well that he wants Oscar to be a midfielder in the center of the pitch rather than in an advanced position. What I've been crying out to see for a couple of years.

Lol! Was it made of solid gold? £90!? Anyways, I think Higuain will be great there initially but they'll regret spending such a ridiculous amount on him in a couple of years.

Wait, you guys have QVC in the UK?!

Ludicrous amount for him. Surely they won't now sell their next most imprortant player to us? Their fans would riot.

Di Marzio reporting that Juventus have deposited the €90m to trigger Higuain's release clause. That can't be good for our pursuit of Koulibaly...

I must have watched a different Koulibaly in the videos I've seen of him. The exact opposite of a "lump who lumps the ball." He's a physical and athletic monster and is extremely comfortable on the ball. Much better than anyone in our squad now. He'd instantly take our defense to the next level. I really, really hope we can negotiate with Napoli this week and get this done. Don't even care what crazy price we pay. He's too important not to get. He's the dominant CB we need so let's hope we don't walk away and settle for a lesser player. He should be priority #1.

Right, he's just big boned. Husky.

Maybe Eden will start the season lean and cut now with that workout! No more chubby Hazard to open the season. He can look like Willian rather than Götze.

Nothing from Sky Zimbabwe yet? Or Sky Mongolia? Wake me when that happens...

Yep. We cannot afford to miss out on him at this point. Player wants to come, we want him, get it done. John Stones will cost around £50m and City will gladly pay it because he's a player they really want. Koulibaly is better than Stones so we should expect to pay big. I hope we do. He would immedietly improve our team drastically.

Chicharito was a regular for them even if he didn't start. Not really comparable. It seemed like we went months without even seeing Remy. He may as well have not been here.

I think he'd be another Remy. Looked very decent for a small team but would come here and never get a look in. A waste of a squad place.

Heart skipped a beat when I saw this thread blowing up. Thank goodness it was for no reason. This is the sort of signing that got us in the position we're in now. Buying mediocre players instead of quality and bloating the squad with deadwood.

Imagine if, even after he says he'd be interested in coming here, he ends up at Everton because we won't pay the money.

Surely those quotes are only going to piss De Laurentiis off and raise the price even more. He'll probably demand £60m for him now.

It's really astonishing that so many people believed the Mahrez/Adidas shirt thing. Don't think we have ever been interested in him, unfortunately. The club probably feel we're already set in that area.

So...many...walls of text...

The salt, the tears, the devastation if he somehow ended up here rather than Arsenal. The stuff dreams are made of... I don't know what I'd give to see it happen.